Confronting authoritarian populism: the rural dimension

Religion, gender dynamics, place and cultural identity – all inform rising authoritarian populism in rural areas, alongside class interests
and inequalities. Mobilising alternatives to capture by regressive political
forces is not straightforward.

Viewing sketches for the masterpiece "Father" at an exhibition held in Luo Zhongli Art Museum in the Huxi Campus of Sichuan Fine Art Institute, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Dec. 29, 2017. Luo has devoted his career to rural-theme paintings. Wang Quanchao/Xinhua News Agency/Press Association. All rights reserved. Authoritarian populism is on the rise. Whether in Brazil,
Hungary, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, France, the
US and many other countries. Regressive, nationalist, sometimes with religious
inflections, it is a diverse, global phenomenon.

Much has been written about the rise of authoritarian
populism, not least on openDemocracy.
But there has been relatively scant analysis of its specific roots and impacts
in rural areas.

We launched the Emancipatory
Rural Politics Initiative to fill this gap. ERPI aims to explore how and
why authoritarian populism emerges in diverse rural worlds globally, and how it
can be confronted. In March, several hundred researchers and activists will
meet in The Hague to discuss experiences and ways forward. Our aim is both analytical
and practical: to understand and also actively to seek alternatives.

This is the first in a series of openDemocracy articles that
explores these questions, based on emerging
research from around the world.

Despite the deluge of commentary on the rise of populist
politics, too often analyses resort to simplistic and sweeping generalisations
about the rural dimensions: rural people as the ‘somewheres’,
without a cosmopolitan outlook; rural people as the ‘victims’ of the ravages of
post-industrial capitalism; rural places as where undifferentiated inward-looking
‘communities’ exist.

What then is
authoritarian populism? We draw on the arguments of Stuart Hall and others
who were analysing the emergence of Thatcherism. In the terms of Antonio
Gramsci, authoritarian populisms can emerge when the ‘balance of forces’
changes, creating a new ‘political-ideological conjuncture’. Drawing on
populist discontents, a ‘transformist’, authoritarian movement, often with a
strong, figurehead leader, is launched, mobilising around ‘moral panics’ and
‘authoritarian closure’, being given, in Hall’s words, ‘the gloss of populist
consent’.

While this sounds very familiar, today is of course not the
1980s. The forces of capitalism and the contours of politics have changed. Financialisation
in particular defines contemporary capitalism, with major impacts in rural
areas, as speculative investments fuel resource
grabs and dispossession across the world.

Equally, many now challenge the unquestioned ‘common sense’
that rampant hyper-globalisation
just had to be accommodated, with the worst effects mitigated by social
programmes. Instead, populists challenge globalisation with nationalist
rhetoric, as economies and politics look inwards.

Yet the reasons why authoritarian regimes gain support in
rural areas are complex. Class, gender, race, generation, place and other
identities are all important.

These are affected in turn by histories of capitalism,
conflicts and exploitation in agrarian settings, and the often ambivalent
relationships between the state and the countryside: all bound up in what Chantal
Mouffe refers to as the ‘agonistic’ politics across divided groups.

Three distinguishing
features of rural worlds

What then can help us understand authoritarian populisms in
rural worlds? Three things stand out.

First are the histories and consequences of the recent
period of neoliberal globalisation. This has had different impacts on different
places and for different people, and so gives rise to different political
reactions. As Dani
Rodrik explains, whether authoritarian or progressive populism emerges very
much depends on particular histories of globalization. Populist politics may
centre on ethno-nationalist objections to migration or, from a progressive
perspective, arise from the impacts of global trade and investment or
deindustrialization on working people’s livelihoods.

The rural dimensions of this are important: whether migrants
and minorities are welcomed or shunned will depend on cultural histories and
the structures of rural economies. How globalization has affected rural
livelihoods will equally depend on how rural and urban spaces are connected,
and who benefits and who loses.

Neoliberal globalization has thus had contrasting implications
for class, race, caste, gender and age – and so for processes of rural political
mobilization. In many rural regions, communities have been hollowed out as
small farms and other businesses face increasing competition, industries close,
young people leave for urban areas, social pathologies spread, and local
institutions — cooperatives, credit unions, sports clubs, schools — weaken or
collapse. In many rural settings, it’s no surprise that the appeal of
authoritarian, nationalist populism is strong.

Rural resources

Second, the extractive exploitation of rural resources
continues apace. Particularly since the
global financial and food crisis of 2008, the
grabbing of land, water or minerals has been reshaping rural spaces in many
parts of the world, as finance capital seeks new returns.

In some cases, armed conflict contributes to the
dispossession and displacement. In many
countries rural resource extraction is now being pursued with a more
nationalist tinge, with arguments about ‘national interest’ in relation to energy,
food or water securities. With new capital-elite-state alliances, the dynamics
of accumulation shift, and with this comes a new politics of displacement.

Populist arguments for new investments, jobs and growth in
rural areas easily appeal to those who have been left behind. Yet the capture
of land and resources may result in territorial and environmental destruction
and in new exclusions and dispossessions. Simply arguing that resource grabbing
is bad is not enough: alternative, inclusive visions for rural economies are
needed that also bring livelihood opportunities in often poor, neglected
regions.

Reactionary identity politics

Third, in order to foster resistance and garner
alternatives, the emergence of authoritarian populism, with a strong rural
base, needs a careful, sympathetic analysis of why is it that young people,
women, peasant farmers and others are often swayed by such reactionary
politics. As Nancy
Fraser argues, we need to think about the intersecting politics of
identity, belonging, recognition and redistribution.

Rural religion, gender dynamics, place and cultural identity
are important alongside class interests and inequalities. Mobilising
alternatives to the easy capture by regressive political forces is not
straightforward. New campaigns and narratives are required that go beyond
simplistic appeals to ‘community’, empathetic
individualism and localist ‘sovereignties’.

Lots of new economic activities are emerging in rural areas,
based on principles of communing, mutualism and care. But how to connect these,
moving beyond the isolated and experimental, and link them to each other and to
emancipatory political alliances?

These are some of the challenges we are discussing across
the ERPI
network, now involving researchers, practitioners and activists from over
fifty countries. In the forthcoming blogs and our reports on our March event,
we will be examining what is happening in particular places, and how
authoritarian populism, in its diverse forms, is being confronted. Please join
the conversation!

About the authors

Ian Scoones is a professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, and co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre. Email: ians@ids.ac.uk

Saturnino M. Borras Jr. is a professor of agrarian studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, the Netherlands, an adjunct professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing, and a fellow of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute (TNI) and of the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). Email: borras@iss.nl

Lyda Fernanda Forero is a Colombian economist who carries out analysis and
campaigning on trade and investment policies, the architecture of
impunity created for transnational corporations, and new trends in
financialisation and commodification of nature and life. She is a researcher for TNI's Economic Justice,
Corporate Power and Alternatives program.

Ruth Hall is a professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Email: rhall@uwc.ac.za

Ben White is Emeritus Professor of Rural Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.He has been involved in research on agrarian change and the anthropology and history of childhood and youth since the early 1970s, mainly in Indonesia.E-mail: white@iss.nl

The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) was launched during 2017 as a response to the rise of authoritarian populism in different parts of the world. Our focus is on the rural origins and consequences of authoritarian populism, as well as the forms of resistance and variety of alternatives that are emerging.

In March 2018, a major ERPI event will be held in The Hague, the Netherlands, bringing together around 300 researchers and activists from across five continents. ERPI small grant holders will present research insights and debates will focus on mobilizing alternatives, generating new research-activist networks across the world.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
If you have any queries about republishing please contact us.
Please check individual images for licensing details.

Who are 'we' in a moving world?

Our partnership with The Open University brings together academics and artists to ask who – in a time when the lines marking out citizens, borders and nations are being drawn more starkly – 'we' are, and who gets to decide? Read more...

World Forum for Democracy 2017

This year, the theme is ‘populism’. Is the problem fake news or fake democracy? What media, what political parties, what politicians do we need to re-connect with citizens and make informed choices in 21st century democracy?

Civil Society Futures is a national conversation about how English civil society can flourish in a fast changing world.Come and add your voice»

Full coverage of the non-hierarchical conference held in Barcelona on 18-22 June 2017.